Fort Ticonderoga to host living history weekend

Visitors will have an opportunity to travel back in time to March 1776 during a living history event at Fort Ticonderoga.

“Ordered to Join the Northern Army in Canada” will be held Saturday and Sunday, March 15-16, at the fortress 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The cost is $10 a person. Friends of Fort Ticonderoga and children 4 years old and younger are free.

“As Fort Ticonderoga begins to tell the epic story of 1776 during the 2014 season, guests to this living history event are asked to join the reinforcements headed for northern forts and Canada and face this military crisis with them,” Beth Hill, Fort Ticonderoga president and CEO, said. “Stand inside the parade of the fort as New York soldiers, re-enlisted veterans from 1775 and new recruits, drill to defend this vital link in the supply chain. Hear leather heels strike the ground as they march in step.

“Thrill at the crack of their firelocks as they fire volleys,” she said. “Watch the carpenters hard at work as they turn logs and lumber into crates, sleds, and beams. Explore Fort Ticonderoga as it comes to life with the struggle to keep an American army alive in March of 1776.”

There will be a number of special events and activities during the weekend.

“For the freezing, sick and starving American soldiers living in houses and barns outside the walls of Quebec in early 1776, hope lay just to the south at Fort Ticonderoga, an old French fort on Lake Champlain,” Stuart Lilie, Fort Ticonderoga director of interpretation said. “The lives of American soldiers and the campaign to capture Canada were in jeopardy. Unlike the persistent snow and ice in Canada, the Continental Army’s solders were melting away from disease, injury and expiring enlistments.

“In the depth of the winter teams of oxen and horses dragged sleds on frozen rivers and lakes along the chain of forts from Albany all the way to Quebec,” he said. “Filled with food, winter clothing, and medicine, the contents of each sled were vital to keep the remaining American soldiers alive. Warm weather and cracking ice threatened to shatter the Army.”

The weekend schedule includes:

— guided tours of the fort at 10:15 a.m., 1:15 p.m. and 3 p.m.;

— musket demonstrations at 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m.;

— a demonstration as carpenters hew down logs to build another sled to keep the train of supplies rolling into Canada at noon;

— the harvest of logs to supply the fort at 2:30 p.m. Hiking boots are recommended;

— the Continental Store on the ground floor of the Officers Barracks will be open all day. A hardware store, a fabric store, a supermarket and more. Packed in the barracks, bastions and casemates, people can see the magazine of Continental army supplies kept at Fort Ticonderoga.

— the Tailor’s Shop on the second floor of the Officers Barracks will be open all day. Visitors will be able to pick up a needle and thread and help sew mattresses for soldiers;

— the Soldier’s Quarters on the ground floor of the Soldiers Barracks will be open all day;

— the Officer’s Quarters located on the ground floor of the Officer’s Barracks will be available throughout the day;

— the exhibit “It Would Make a Heart of Stone Melt” will be open on the ground floor of the Soldiers Barracks. It examines wounds, disease, injury and the treatment of these ailments for soldiers at Fort Ticonderoga during the American Revolution; and

— the “Pork, Pigeon, & Pottery” exhibit will be available on the ground floor of the Soldiers Barracks. It features original artifacts recovered from the ruins of Fort Ticonderoga.